Well, party people, as I’ve said before, I work in payroll for a small company (~1700 employees total). And guess what’s due to each and every one of them postmarked or otherwise delivered no later than January 31?
Why, W-2 forms, of course.
So (there’s that “So” again…), that’s what I’ve been up to this week. While not as maddening in the short term as the first payroll of the year (remember? When the computers were down for 2 straight days and I worked until 9 one night, until 12 the next and then 12 hours on a Saturday?), it is just as annoying because it lasts longer.
Current employee W-2s came to each location today. Inactive employee W-2s were mailed today. I was responsible for sorting them. (Keep in mind that, by and large, some of these people can’t keep a job for more than, in some cases 3 whole hours, so we actually printed a total of 5,000 or so W-2s, which, to my math, represents 300% turnover).
In some cases, a current employee’s W-2 may have accidentally made it into the inactive stack. In one such case, the employee called me CRYING because her W-2 wasn’t there. “This is the worst thing ever!”
I TRY to have sympathy, but anyone whose entire financial stability hinges on one single W-2** really needs to develop a Plan B. I CANNOT do anything now (not entirely true: I can reprint the W-2, but if I do it for her, I’ll have to do it for the other 4,999 as well). The W-2 is addressed correctly (woohoo) so she should receive it by Tuesday or so.
And damn you H&R Block for taking advantage of these poor suckers with your “NO W-2 needed!” tax filing and your “Refund Anticipation MasterCards!”. Beyond the whole issue of this being a short term solution that ultimately hurts the client (or employee in my case), it is a gigantic pain in the ass for people in my position. Do you know how much year to date data I faxed hither, tither and yon? A freaking lot.
** I do not mean “financial stability” as “Let’s take our refund and buy a stove”, I literally mean financial stability, folks. The difference between roof and no roof, bread and no bread, crack and no crack, etc. The years we’ve had refunds I’ve been pleased but you cannot count on your refund like it’s a source of income.